of a man whose destiny summons him to the world.”—And when her son, after meditating on some of the most glorious productions of art, felt himself, as he says, "disheartened and cast down at the unattainable superiority of the artist, and that it was only by reflecting on the immense labour and continued efforts which such masterpieces must have required, that I regained my courage and my ardour," she observes, "this passage, my dear son, is to me as precious as gold, and I send it to you again, because I wish you to impress it strongly on your mind. The remembrance of this may also be a useful preservative from too great confidence in your abilities, to which, a warm imagination may sometimes be liable, or from the despondence you might occasionally feel from the contemplation of grand originals. Continue, therefore, my dear son, to form a sound judgment and a pure taste from your own observations; your mind, while yet young and flexible, may receive whatever impressions you wish. Be careful that your abilities do not inspire in you too much confidence, lest it VOL. II. M should happen to you as it has to many others, that they have never possessed any greater merit than that of having good abilities." One more extract, to preserve an incident which may touch the heart of genius. This extraordinary woman, whose characteristic is that of strong sense with delicacy of feeling, would check her German sentimentality at the moment she was betraying those emotions in which the imagination is so powerfully mixed up with the associated feelings. Arriving at their cottage at Sihlwald, she proceeds -"On entering the parlour three small pictures, painted by you, met my eyes. I passed some time in contemplating them. It is now a year, thought I, since I saw him trace these pleasing forms; he whistled and sang, and I saw them grow under his pencil; now he is far, far from us. -In short, I had the weakness to press my lips on one of these pictures. You well know, my dear son, that I am not much addicted to scenes of a sentimental turn; but to-day, while I considered your works, I could not restrain from this little impulse of maternal feelings. Do not, how ever, be apprehensive that the tender affection of a mother will ever lead me too far, or that I shall suffer my mind to be too powerfully impressed with the painful sensations to which your absence gives birth. My reason convinces me that it is for your welfare that you are now in a place where your abilities will have opportunities of unfolding, and where you can become great in your art." Such is the incomparable wife and mother of the GESNERS! for I have heard that she is living. Will it now be a question whether matrimony is incompatible with the cultivation of the arts? A wife who reanimates the drooping genius of her husband, and a mother who is inspired by the ambition of beholding her sons eminent, is she not the real being which the ancients personified in their Muse? CHAPTER XIX. LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS-IN EARLY LIFE-HOW DIFFERENT FROM THOSE OF MEN OF THE WORLD OF FEELINGS-A AMONG the virtues which literature inspires, is often that of the most romantic friendship. The delirium of love, and even its lighter caprices, are incompatible with the pursuits of the student; but to feel friendship like a passion is necessary to the mind of genius alternately elated and depressed, ever prodigal of feeling and excursive in knowledge. The qualities which constitute literary friendship, compared with those of men of the world, must render it as rare as true love itself, which it resembles in that intellectual tenderness of which both so deeply participate. Born "in the dews of their youth," this friendship will not expire on their tomb. In the school or the college this immortality begins; and engaged in similar studies, should even one excel the other, he would find in him the protector of his fame; as ADDISON did in STEELE, WEST in GRAY, and GRAY in MASON: thus PETRARCH was the guide of Boccaccio, and BOCCACCIO became the defender of his master's genius. Perhaps friendship is never more intense than in an intercourse of minds of ready counsels and inspiring ardours: united in the same pursuits, but directed by an unequal experience, the imperceptible superiority interests without mortifying; it is a counsel, it is an aid; in whatever form it shows itself, it has nothing of the malice of rivalry. A beautiful picture of such a friendship among men of genius offers itself in the history of MIGNARD, the great French painter, and Du FRESNOY, the great critic of the art itself. DU FRESNOY, abandoned by his stern father, the apothecary, in utter |